“4,” “2” Tao Dance Theater Alice Tully Hall Lincoln Center New York, NY July 27, 2012 by Leigh Witchel copyright © 2012 by Leigh Witchel Modern dance is still catching up with ballet in China, but Tao Ye doesn’t feel behind the times. He’s a minimalist and a formalist who played with concepts of pacing and construction that were provocative enough to make people leave. But was the audience provoked or just exhausted? His company, now four years old, played for a short run as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. The two works performed were titled by numbers – the same as the amount of dancers in each. Four women started with their backs to us in the first piece. They were masked in black and costumed in limp, slouchy tops and large skirts of coarse fabric, recalling Rei Kawakubo’s designs. The movement palette was fluid, consistent and restricted. The cast went through long, organic phrases, twisting, kicking, striding, reeling. The masked dancers and the dancing – so unvaried and in relentless unison, had echoes of the forces of conformity or oppression. The music changed; the dancing didn’t. By five minutes in, you had seen everything they were going...